This invention relates to animal feed and, more particularly, to animal feed in hard, block form.
In range land, for much of the year, only dry grass is available for providing carbohydrates and some protein to grazing animals. This dry grass does not provide the requisite amount of protein and fat to enable grazing animals such as range cattle to put on good gain and finish. Accordingly, there is a significant need for an economical, high energy, nutritionally balanced, hard, climatically stable, animal feed block which can be placed on range land for utilization as animal feed.
It is known in the art to prepare hard, animal feed blocks by, for example, (a) compressing and molding a mix of hay, straw, grains and the like, with or without molasses, to a desired shape and weight or (b) by heating and evaporating water from a molasses-fat-urea mixture, usually under vacuum conditions, with the resulting mix setting, on cooling, to a hard form. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,420,672 (Appleman, 1969), it is disclosed that gelatinized starch can be utilized as an emulsifying agent in the preparation of solid, animal feed emulsions containing molasses, fatty material, urea, phosphate, bentonite or kaolin, and other ingredients and additives.